Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White will have to replace his starting line next season. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White had his name mentioned a lot in speculation about where he might end up coaching next year after UK’s 4-8 season.
White has turned down other job offers during his time at Kentucky and coach Mark Stoops noted after the Louisville loss how continuity on the defensive coaching staff had been a plus in recent years for UK.
White takes the speculation in stride and it has become obvious both White and his family like life in Lexington.
“It’s a yearly deal. It’s more of a testament to what this defensive unit does year in and year out and what this coaching staff does,” White said. “Again, on those deals, I’ve got to sit down and talk with Coach (Stoops) in terms of making sure this is where I’m safe.
“Listen, just like the players have to own up to what they’ve done wrong, I’ve gotta sit down and get corrected some things that we need to get corrected, and that’s where my focus is.”
White said his current focus was figuring out how to “get the roster right” and then trying to figure “out what kind of scheme” Kentucky needs to use.
“Hopefully, I’ve got the ability to do that here,” White said.
The Kentucky defense has to replace its starting line. Deone Walker has declared for the NFL draft, Keeshawn Silver is entering the transfer portal and Tre’Vonn Rybka is out of eligibility. Backup lineman Octavious Oxendine is also out of eligibility
Seniors Josaih Hayes and Kahlil Saunders are scheduled to return along with several true freshmen who played very little this season.
5 Responses
What went wrong?
Start with the annual pathetic secondary.
That coach either can’t coach or can’t select decent players.
3rd & long is a gift to opposing teams – almost a sure long pass play to get bailed out anywhere on the field.
The problem with NIL is that now coaches have to be cognizant of the fact that kids are not coachable any more. If you push them to hard, they simply go to another school for more money and less work. These are kids. They do not necessary make good decisions. Although White’s secondary’s have never been outstanding, they could function. But we’ve seen a performance degradation that parallels the growth of NIL.
That said, the Cats have obviously suffered from a lack of secondary development under White. Games are won and lost at the line of scrimmage so White has to put the emphasis where he gets the biggest bang for the buck. Therefore, the secondary will always suffer because KY has never had the luxury of being two deep at every position like the GA’s and Alabama’s of the world.
3rd and long was the worse part of the defense because they never blitz on 3rd and long. You need to make the qb throw the ball before he is ready and that never happened.
Other than that, most everything else can be explained by a defense that was worn out and beat up in nearly every game because they never got a rest. When the offense cannot move the ball, the defense is in trouble no matter who you are playing.
It is really ironic that Stoops complained about Shannon Dawson wanting to score too quickly and not letting his defense rest. Now he has an OC that can’t even move the ball and is wearing the defense out, but he is not complaining and wants him to stay. At least Dawson’s idea was putting points on the board.
Good point about Dawson.
Exactly–great points about Dawson, who is now one of the best OCs in the country that Stoops allowed to get away. Also, Liam Coen–maybe the BEST OC, not to mention QB COACH, that we have ever had at this school–this administration allows him to get away, not once, but TWICE!!! Now he’s at Tampa Bay, and their fans are begging and dying for him not to get away from THEM TOO!!! Stoops has never learned, nor will never learn. He doesn’t have an offensive identity, or imagination, or philosophy. It’s like as a student of the game of football, if one eye and ear is offense, and the other eye and ear is defense, he has perfect vision and hearing in the defensive eye and ear, but he is 100% blind and deaf in the eye and ear that are the offensive part!! BTW, I saw an article on another site that had a list of 5 potential prospects at replacement coordinators if Marrow were to follow Belechik to UNC—and would u believe they were insane enough to have one of the five possibilities be Joker Phillips? Boy, our program must REALLY be in trouble if we are talking about bringing JOKER BACK!!! They must have forgotten or are maybe not old enough to remember what that was like–but it hasn’t been THAT long ago!!! They said that Joker would bring familiarity of the program with him and an understanding of the CULTURE–and that maybe that would allow him to rebuild the relationship here that was broken after he was let go as coach–LMAO—OMG–are u kidding me? Yea, what our football program needs right now is Stoops as head coach, and the guy whom he replaced to rebuild the program in the first place, Joker, as his right-hand guy and recruiting coordinator–yea, that’s the answer. Now that I think about it, wouldn’t that be just SO UK FOOTBALL??? Do the OPPOSITE of what makes sense. I actually didn’t know that Joker was still coaching–said he is the WR coach at NC ST—but if we r going to bring Joker back, then KY might as well become the SEC version of those cold Big East schools and just cancel football as a varsity sport here. KY FB can never learn to GO FORWARD as a program, they always want to go BACKWARD in everything they have always done, and that shows in their long-term history. There have been brief stints of short-term success here–the best of Bear Bryant’s era, the best of Fran Curci’s era, the best of Hal Mumme’s era, the best of Rich Brooks’ era, and the best of Mark Stoops’ era. Aside from that—-well, u know the story. What they need to do is LEARN FROM AND TAKE FROM the best of all of those eras–what has made KY the most successful and most competitive in the SEC when they WERE, and put together a plan long-term to get back to that. I still say with the best of Stoops’ defensive teams, if he could have ever figured out anything remotely at all on the offensive side of the ball, even if it was just having a guy like Liam Coen to just run the damn operation on his own, Stoops could easily still have truly "the best coach in KY FB history, aside from Bryant" title on his legacy. U know, it doesn’t take much–u see all kind of other programs out there of lesser talent and of less stature in conference affiliation know and understand how to move the football and score the football, but more so just from the basic offensive standpoint, how to just MOVE THE BALL, MOVE THE CHAINS, GET FIRST DOWNS—if u get a decent enough QB, RB, OLINE, and OC all working together and having some kind of an "IDENTITY", "PHILOSOPHY", "SYSTEM", then just figuring out how to move the football will eventually lead u to points on the board! The one big thing that is overlooked and undervalued about Liam Coen is that, in addition to being a great OC, he is a fantastic "QB coach", and that’s a big part of what made Will Levis so good his first year–Coen was out on that field with Levis communicating with him and coaching him up and coaching the entire offense up, and INVOLVED in the offensive game plan, not sitting up in the booth dozing off wishing he was sitting back on the blue turf in Boise St. The guy is just a pure winner, he proved that here, and now he is proving it at the highest level, and like I said, we allowed him to get away from us TWICE. And that first season with Levis, 2021, was the only season in the Stoops tenure where it actually looked as if Stoops had his hands OFF of the offense and was allowing his OC to take the majority of the control over it and run it his own way. That showed in every statistic and record set that year–and that season sits far and away above all the others of the Stoops era in the total offensive numbers registered, specifically in the passing game–the passing yards, the QB stats, the receiving yards, the total number of plays per game, the play-calling, the tempo, the overall style and schematic balance between the pass and the run, and how the run was used to set up the pass—we had a major leap in all of those categories within that one individual season compared to all the other seasons of the Stoops era. Unfortunately, I agree with another post I read that Stoops and Hamdan are just clueless and are running this program into the ground. Quite frankly, I just think Stoops has lost it. I think he has lost his grip on the program, and I think all of the changes within the game have taken him over–and what little he did find here as a head coach for several years is now gone. I honestly hope that Marrow leaves for UNC, and Stoops decides to retire, as a result. The FB program needs the same change and facelift as both bball programs received this year for the sake of the health, and quite frankly, the SURVIVAL, of the program. Who knows what the final record and season results will be, but we are finding out quickly this season with both of our bball teams how much difference the intelligence and IQ of the game within coaches is making in the performance of the teams–and intelligence within individual players too. But the difference in bball intelligence and bball IQ between Pope and CAL is night and day, not to mention what honest effort and hard work will get you–but that aside, our football program is in dire need of some coaches, AT ALL THE POSITIONS, with some football IQ, some offensive know-how, and some definitive ideas, schematically, systematically, and philosophically, of how they want to run a football team, what they want it to look like, and how they want to apply all of that towards finding a way to make it work in being a respectable and competitive SEC program. Every other program in the past decade has been able to do that at some point, but more so it’s the way the mid-level programs have found their way in making themselves rise up–teams like Missouri, SCAR, ARK, Miss St under Mike Leach, and now even Vandy……KY has now come far enough over the past decade that they should be minimally winning 7 games every year and making bowls–even if it’s not any more than just THAT, depending on the strength of the schedule from year to year, but minimally KY should now be at that level–6 to 7 wins on avg, from year to year–EVERY YEAR–with the potential some years of being able to hit 8, 9, 10 wins, as Stoops has done a few times in his career. If it has already been accomplished more than once, it can be accomplished again. Here’s hoping for the BEST for our FB program in 2025—whatver that is—BUT DEAR GOD: NO JOKER!!!!!!!